


I Now Pronounce You Royally Fucked

by SweetPollyOliver



Category: The Tick (TV 2017)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Fake Marriage, First Kiss, Pining, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21824362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetPollyOliver/pseuds/SweetPollyOliver
Summary: It was all Arthur's fault.
Relationships: Dorothy "Dot" Everest/Overkill
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	I Now Pronounce You Royally Fucked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/gifts).



It was all Arthur’s fault. Which was to say- no. Yeah. It was all Arthur’s fault. 

It had been his and Tick’s operation, at the beginning. They (Arthur) had followed up on leads and staked out various shady mob fronts and done all the work that had led finally to… well. Here. 

A Catholic marriage counselling retreat where a district attorney was allegedly trying to save his relationship with his wife and, more likely, if Arthur’s information was right (and… damn it, it usually was) was meeting with a priest (a _priest_ goddamn it) with family in The Family to negotiate throwing the Rigoletto case for a price. 

And, well, Arthur and the Tick didn’t exactly pass muster when it came to posing as the kind of ailing marriage that the church would want to save, and Arthur’s first idea had been that he and _Dot_ go (ew.) And even if Dot hadn’t made a face like he’d asked her to eat rotten eggs when he’d suggested that, neither of them knew the first thing about Catholicism. At least one person in the operation should be able to mumble their way through a decade of the rosary. Or know what a decade of the rosary _was_. Arthur thought a Hail Mary was something to do with football, and considering how little Overkill suspected Arthur knew about football that boded very ill indeed for his ability to pass for a practising Catholic. The only and obvious choice was _him_ who had grown up in an orphanage operated by nuns until he was nine. 

So. It was all Arthur’s fault. 

He stared at Dot from the corner of the room where he stood. The back of her head seemed to stare back at him until she tossed over suddenly and glared in his direction. 

“This is ridiculous,” she said.

“Right?” he responded, exhaling with relief. “This is small potatoes stuff. We shouldn’t be wasting our talents taking down small time-”

“No!” she cut across him. She dragged a hand through her hair and huffed out a sigh. “I don’t care if you can, and I quote ‘sleep standing up and spring into action at the slightest disturbance’ just get in the damn bed.”

He looked across the four feet to the bed as though across a soccer stadium’s worth of broken glass. No. That would have been better. 

“I’m good here,” he said. 

“Overkill,” she said—and that was another thing. They were using their real names on this mission. Not that Dot had another name, but anyway. She knew his name now. No one called him by his name anymore, except for Janet, and when he’d said that Dot had gotten quiet and looked at him with soft sad eyes and said ‘I’ll only call you that as much as I need to, Overkill.’

He didn’t know how to tell her that he might not mind it. If it was her. 

“You’re keeping me up,” she went on, snapping him back into the moment. “Maybe this,” she gestured at him with an up and down motion of her hand. “Works for you? But it’s not working for me. Get in the bed.” 

He took one ginger step towards the queen sized bed and stopped. He swallowed and started again, taking another, larger step and then walked quickly and lay down beside her before he could lose his nerve. His back was taut with tension and his toes were clenched. 

She sighed again.

“You don’t have to if you really don’t want to,” she said in a low voice, turning back around. 

“No, I-” he willed his body to relax. “It’s fine.” 

She rolled onto her back so they were both looking up at the cracked white ceiling. The holy virgin watched them from an alcove near the window and a solemn saint he could only assume was St. Jude glowered at them from a wall near the bed. A few miscellaneous popes rounded out the posse. 

“This is weird,” she said. 

“I guess if you’re not used to it,” he replied, looking at a porcelain cherub holding a bowl of holy water by the door. “I grew up with this.”

“No,” she huffed a laugh. “I mean, y’know. Being your wife.” 

A warmth suffused his body that he immediately willed into glacial cold. 

“You can get Dangerboat in the divorce,” he said, and she laughed more fully.

“Okay, but you have to take Arthur,” she replied. 

“No deal,” he said.

She rolled onto her side. “I guess we’ll have to stay married.”

Panicking (not panicking, he never panicked), he said, “Did you mean what you said earlier?”

“What?”

“In group?” he clarified and saw realisation dawn on her face. 

In a circle of weeping couples, Dot had haltingly said, to gasps of horror, that she had quit her job and left medical school for him. When they were leaving, she’d winked at him and he hadn’t stopped thinking about it all day. 

“Did I leave school _for_ you?” she asked. “Hell no. But I probably did leave because of you.”

Something in his chest clenched. 

“O-oh. Okay,” he said and his body stiffened minutely again. 

“Hey,” Dot scooted over closer to him. “I left for _me_. You don’t need to feel bad about it. I feel fucking amazing about it, to be perfectly frank.” 

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah! I mean,” she paused. “When I was growing up, Arthur always needed- he needed a lot of help. A lot of doctors, other various medical professionals. So I became one. But Arthur doesn’t need me to save him—he’s saving, he _saved_ , himself. And I get to do what I want to do now. Which, apparently, involves sleeping in a bed with you fully clothed.”

He was in his civvies, minus the sunglasses (he was telling the people at the retreat that he had an eye condition—not technically a lie). He focused on that instead of the sudden thought of being in a bed with Dot _not_ fully clothed. 

“Uh,” he said awkwardly. “Likewise. You’re what I want to d- you’re the person I want to- I like working with you too.” 

She reached over and kissed him on the cheek. Or would have if he hadn’t moved his head towards her to say something else and his lips hadn’t gotten caught in the crossfire. They stayed still for a moment until he slowly, cautiously kissed her back. Her body went lax against him and he drew her in closer with one arm wrapped around her waist. She tangled their legs together, hers beneath the blankets and his over. 

When they drew apart she looked at him from beneath her eyelashes and said, “We should probably talk about this, huh?” 

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed. 

“Tomorrow?” she said, reaching for the hem of his shirt. 

“Tomorrow works for me,” he replied.

“I think we might save this marriage yet,” she said before taking his bottom lip between her teeth.


End file.
